Hugo Vapor URUS - Photo Album
I was in two minds when Heaven Gifts asked if I wanted to review this mod. On one hand I've always wanted to try an nylon/plastic mod since I first saw a Boxer/Rebel. I was also very curious about the battery life of a single 21700 mod. On the other hand Hugo Vapor's Boxer mod had a lot of issues with shorts and hot buttons, and my charger can't charge 21700 so I would have to charge it via the USB port. I'm always a little extra paranoid when it comes to safety.
Curiosity got the best of me. Besides HV released a V2 of the Boxer and a mechanical squonker since then and there's no complaints about them. Thinking back I'm really glad that I agreed because I fucking love this mod. Thanks to it's weight, battery life and power delivery, the URUS has replaced the HCigar VT75D as my on the go mod.
So, 3 reasons I'm extremely impressed with this mod:
1. Lightweight
The URUS is a pretty standard looking mod. It's not as small as you'd expect a single battery mod to be, but it's still noticeably smaller than my other mods.
This thing is light!!! It weighs only 74 grams! It's such a joy to handle coming from zinc metal alloy mods! It's noticeably lighter even my lightest mod, the Vaporesso Revenger. I can wave it around any way I want, it doesn't have a mind of it's own and doesn't constantly want to slip out of my grip. I can even use it with just two fingers! It doesn't weigh down my pockets and I can carry it along with my wallet in one hand without worrying about dropping it.
I've weighed some of my other mods and compared them with the URUS:
The weight of this reminds me of my SBody Macro 75 but this one feels lighter as it's a little bigger. Because the mod is so light it's always a little top heavy with any atty attached. This little taste of the plastic life makes me want to sell my ZMA mods and get a Boxer/Rebel.
2. Power delivery
This mod has 5 modes. Power, Temp Control (Ni, Ti & SS316L), Bypass, Custom curve and pre-heat. Temp control is too erratic, almost downright random to be usable. I never use Bypass. Custom curve works but it's too glitchy to setup. Pre-heat works very well.
Thankfully good old Power mode is pretty freakin great! It fires right away, neither faster nor slower than the DNAs, but probably not as fast as the Funky 160. From the numbers displayed it seems like it starts firing at the correct voltage for the wattage and resistance, and after a second the voltage bumps up and fires a little harder. Not sure if it's compensating for the resistance change in SS wire or if it's trying to be a "hard hitting mod". Feels like it fires 3-5 watts harder than the DNAs around 40-60 watts range.
The power delivery is smooth and feels identical to the Gene chip, and almost as good as the DNA. This is something I have a hard time explaining. I feel that some mods, like the iJoy Captain 1865 most recently, fires in a PWM fashion where it feels like it's pulsing between higher watts and lower watts real fast. The result is an experience where the set wattage and the vapor temperature feels correct but the vapor production is lower than usual and there's a slight, but definitely noticeable burnt taste in the vapor. I vape a lot of creams and custards and I've been vaping my ADV flavors for years so it's more noticeable for me.
So if you like the power delivery of the Gene chip, like I do, you're gonna like this one. Power delivery is the most important factor for me. A mod can be light as a feather and last for months but if I'm not satisfied with the vape I won't use it for long. I almost exclusively vape TC and having great TC is a big deal for me. With that said I find it very easy to give this mod a pass for doing a shit job of it because everything else is so great. Besides I'm usually using RTAs/RDTAs on this mod so TC is not as important.
2. Battery life with a Golisi S35 21700
In the past I tried using several single 18650 mods when I'm out and about. Size and weight were perfect but I was always disappointed with the battery life. At 45-50 watts I'd only get ~100 puffs out of my SBody Macro DNA75 before it would experience massive battery sag and would refuse to fire.
Not the Golisi S35 21700! This is the battery with the best specs that also come with Mooch's recommendation. 30 amps and 3700mah!
I hit close to 300 puffs at 40 watts and still have ~15% left according to the mod. That's enough to be out most of the day and come back home with still plenty of juice left in the battery. No longer do I have to carry spare 18650s or use heavier and bigger dual 18650 mods and it feels fucking great!
I wanted to get a better sense of how the battery life here compares to other dual 18650 mods. tried the same atty with the same build on two other mods go get a sense of the vape time. My puffs are 2 seconds on average. Same pair of 6 months old HG2 were used in the other mods. I stopped with 15% remaining on each mod. Not sure how these numbers would scale with power.
So with a single 21700 the URUS gets 67% of the Therion 166's vape time, and 79% of the VT75D's vape time. That's pretty amazing to me! Before receiving this mod I thought I'd use it at low wattages for MTL with nic salt, but now I see I can hit it at my usual wattages just fine!
On a side note I'm pretty disappointed that the new Pulse BF with the Gene chip won't take 21700. The current 20700 batteries don't come close to this on paper :/
What I don't like about the mod
QC Issues
While this mod is built well and has a really polished exterior, it also has a few annoying QC issues.
The screen is mounted at a slight tilt. Not immediately noticeable but it's there. A little bit of the gold plating is missing/scratched up on the bottom battery connector. The top one is fine.
The frame is not sealed with the chip casing on the right side of the mod. So you can see a faint glow of the screen from the side. It's also not very noticeable and can only be seen from certain angles. I tried taking the photo from the worst angle and HDR exaggerates it a little bit.
I hope these issues are not widespread and they are the only ones that this mod has. It's really sad to see an otherwise solid mod have such amateur flaws.
Battery Contacts
Sadly this mod has those terrible battery contacts that has one sharp edge that sticks out. It's really easy to tear the battery wrap with these contacts. They're not as sharp as the ones on the Funky, but they're still bad. I really wish they had used something else. Most people here wouldn't trust Hugo Vapor with USB charging, and they'd probably have multiple 21700 to switch between.
When I start charging the battery externally I'm going to have to be really careful as my usual shops don't have 21700 wraps yet.
